{"id":302902,"date":"2017-03-19T06:39:16","date_gmt":"2017-03-19T06:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=302902"},"modified":"2017-03-19T06:39:16","modified_gmt":"2017-03-19T06:39:16","slug":"us-man-held-for-sending-flashing-tweet-to-epileptic-writer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=302902","title":{"rendered":"US man held for sending flashing tweet to epileptic writer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">A man accused of sending a flashing image to a writer in order to trigger an epileptic seizure has been arrested, the US justice department says.<\/p>\n<p>John Rayne Rivello, 29, of Maryland, sent Kurt Eichenwald an animated image with a flashing light on Twitter in December, causing the seizure.<\/p>\n<p>He has been charged with criminal cyber stalking and could face a 10-year sentence, the New York Times reports.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You deserve a seizure for your post,&#8221; he is alleged to have written.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Eichenwald is known to have epilepsy. He is a senior writer at Newsweek magazine, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and a best-selling author of books including The Informant.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body__crosshead\">&#8216;Let&#8217;s see if he dies&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Investigators found that Mr Rivello had sent messages to other Twitter users about Mr Eichenwald and a plan to attack him virtually, including one that read: &#8220;I hope this sends him into a seizure&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Spammed this at [victim] let&#8217;s see if he dies,&#8221; another message read, according to the justice department.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators found a screenshot on his iCloud account of an altered Wikipedia page for Mr Eichenwald, falsely listing his date of death as 16 December, a day after the image was sent.<\/p>\n<p>He had also researched epilepsy seizure triggers on the epilepsy.com website.<\/p>\n<p>The Twitter message was no different from &#8220;a bomb sent in the mail or anthrax sent in an envelope,&#8221; Steven Lieberman, a lawyer for Mr Eichenwald, told the New York Times. &#8220;It triggers a physical effect.&#8221;<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"http:\/\/ichef-1.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/D535\/production\/_95218545_7934d16f-f211-4c94-b1ae-18ba8c9ebd48.jpg\" alt=\"Kurt Eichenwald: More than 40 ppl sent strobes once they found out they could trigger seizures. Details of their cases are with the FBI. Stop sending them.\" width=\"976\" height=\"250\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><span class=\"story-image-copyright\">@KURTEICHENWALD<\/span><\/span><\/figure>\n<p>Mr Rivello will have his case heard in Texas, where his alleged victim is based.<\/p>\n<p>The justice department did not say what motivated the attack, though reports have speculated that it may have been related to Mr Eichenwald&#8217;s frequent criticism of US President Donald Trump on Twitter.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Eichenwald is reported to have suffered the effects of the seizure for several weeks. He tweeted on Friday that more than 40 people had sent him &#8220;strobes&#8221; after learning about the case.<\/p>\n<p>After the attack was reported in December, Stefano Seri, a professor of neurophysiology at Aston University in the UK, said the material in the tweet must have been carefully constructed.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Abrupt changes in light intensity, or luminance, can trigger seizures. The most sensitive range is about 15-25 flashes per second,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The picture would need to occupy most of the visual field. It would take some very sick people to do this, but technically, it is possible.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Modern LED screens are not as provocative as older ones. It takes a very carefully designed stimulus to induce a seizure,&#8221; Prof Seri added.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A man accused of sending a flashing image to a writer in order to trigger an epileptic seizure has been arrested, the US justice department says. John Rayne Rivello, 29, of Maryland, sent Kurt Eichenwald an animated image with a flashing light on Twitter in December, causing the seizure. He has been charged with criminal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[5251,5252,5253],"class_list":["post-302902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-cyber-stalking","tag-epilepsy","tag-flash-tweet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=302902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302902\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=302902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=302902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=302902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}